Chandeliers and the Library

News this week:

Bunny has been having back problems, and started having trouble using her back legs. We took her to a couple specialists, because her condition went downhill fast; one day last week she was dragging her back legs behind her. It was very grim. Imaging on Friday showed several large masses in her chest: one over her heart and one in her lungs. We prepared for the worst. Then she rallied and made a pretty decent recovery. She's still not in peak shape, but she's able to walk and wag and Sunday she got brave enough to steal cat food.

That dog is going to be the death of me.

We spent some time at the house this weekend figuring out some chandelier stuff. The electricians seem baffled by the chandeliers and medallions. They did get the dining room chandelier installed, and we put the crystals on it.

What seems to have flummoxed them is the canopy, which is too large for this medallion. Which they would have known if they listened to me tell them I was ordering replacement canopies and not to install the ones in the boxes, but they didn't so now I need to take this down and re-do it. It's temporarily stable, but a big WTF.

Replacement canopies are a thing, anyway. I ordered ours from Grand Brass in Connecticut. They have a great selection of stuff. There aren't many tiny canopies because most people are dealing with standard electrical boxes, but I managed to make it work.

For those asking about the medallion hangers, they are available from Vintage Hardware. That link takes you to their medallion page which has instructions for the hangers, and at the bottom of the page there are two types you can choose from. The catch with those ones was that the pipe thread cut into them is a little unusual for plumbing, so cutting the pipes to the right length if they are too long (and the next size down is too short) is a bit of an ordeal. Todd sourced replacement pipes cut to the right length for us, so that worked out.

Also over the weekend we started bringing some of our boxes of books over and unpacking them. This was just a couple carloads of boxes, and we have a lot more. Our first pass is to unload all the books from boxes onto shelves in rough categories, then I'm going to have the long painful task of sorting them all out and re-alphabetizing them.

Then this week the general contractor got the library ladder installed, which will help a lot in accessing those upper cabinets. The painters are coming back in a week or so and will paint the ladder then, so I'm going to stay off it so the wood doesn't get dirty.

The other thing that has happened over the last few weeks is the assembly of our kitchen island. This is a rolling island, and I'm ordering the countertop for it now. The drama with the island is that the warehouse holding it lost it for several months, and I had to basically pitch a couple fits to get them to look for it. But it is here now, and mostly assembled (there are some issues with it, but they are fixable). I think it looks pretty great. Our stove was supposed to be delivered over the weekend but there was a mixup in that -- the delivery people thought they could drop it off in a garage, and as it happens we do not have a garage. So that needs to be rescheduled.

And finally, the magnolia tree is in bloom and this is one of my favourite views at this time of year.